


Every Stone In This City

by maybetwice



Category: Blood and Chocolate - Annette Curtis Klause
Genre: F/M, Human Politics, Pack Politics, Post-Canon, Running Away, Self-Acceptance, Themed Story, Werewolf Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/maybetwice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve years after winning her place as alpha bitch and Gabriel's rightful mate, Vivian has grown into the queen her pack needs in a dangerous and changing world, but still resists the life she inadvertently chose so young. When a new threat emerges to the pack, she seizes the opportunity to live a life she never dreamed possible, and begins to wonder what she truly wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Stone In This City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rattlingbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattlingbones/gifts).



_July  
*  
Storm Moon_

Like most mornings, Vivian was awake early, already dressed and out the door by the time the sun shaded the horizon in gold. It was cool, and peaceful but for the chattering of birds in the forest. She smelled rabbits moving around in the early morning light, flexed her sharp fingers, and settled for her coffee.

There was no other movement from the cluster of cabins circled by trees, shielding them from the view from the road. Not that many people outside the pack came driving down this particular road, unless they were thoroughly lost. The turn onto the road that led to the inn was more than two miles up the main road, as far from the cabins, built and inhabited by the smaller families in the pack, as they could be. 

The decision had been sensible when it had been made some ten years before, when the pack stumbled onto the little haven they’d called home since. 

Vivian carried her coffee out to her truck, tucking the mug into the console as she started it up. The engine turned over with no protest, and she crept along the winding forest road that she knew so well. A few minutes later, she emerged onto the deserted main road, stopping only at the mailbox near the blind turn that led up to the inn, and on to Gabriel’s house. 

She knew this way as well as the way to her own house, and Vivian steered with her knees with little more than a cursory glance up every few seconds while she flipped through the mail. Vivian had lived in Vermont nearly as long as she’d lived in West Virginia, and she was comfortable there. 

Vivian had even gone to law school in Vermont, though she had offers for schools hours away in larger cities. More prestigious offers, certainly, but she didn’t dare stray too far from the pack--or, perhaps she simply couldn’t bear the thought of being so far from them, after all. She hadn’t gone to school for herself, anyway. Her life was the pack. Her responsibility was their wellbeing.

Seconds before she came up on a sharp fork in the road, Vivian jerked her truck to the right and dodged the pothole she’d made note of before. It still wasn’t fixed, but no one ever came this way. The inn was down the left fork in the road, about half a mile, overlooking the broad mountainside. She paused to look over the view before rattling up to the inn and pulling into the haphazard parking space she usually used. 

Gabriel’s house was hidden by the fully greened trees just a little farther up the hill, though Vivian knew it just as well as the house she’d lived in with her mother, on the edge of the pack land closest to the nearby human town. For years, she’d only barely lived there, spending most of her time at Gabriel’s or at the state university an hour and a half away. It had seemed right, that the pack alpha and his presumed mate would live together, and Esme hadn’t really minded that her baby wasn’t home much. 

It had been a good time of her life, when everything had seemed like it was all falling into place. She was poised to take over as the pack’s attorney when she passed the bar, to busy herself with their businesses, and finally, formally accept Gabriel as her mate, and whelp once she’d finished what were considered appropriate distractions from the alpha bitch. It all seemed like what Vivian wanted, up until the moment she realized she wasn’t as certain about that future.

So, instead, she’d moved into the little cabin in the grove of trees.

Vivian turned her face away from the house and headed up into the inn, grabbing her coffee at the last moment before slamming the door to the truck with a hollow metal noise. Gabriel would be inside the inn, handling some of the last-minute preparations for breakfast before the inn’s sleepy visitors woke and trudged downstairs. 

Certainly enough, as soon as the screen door banged behind her, Gabriel came out from the kitchen, wiping flour from his hands with a curious expression that turned to a warm smile and an outstretched hand for her. 

“What a surprise,” he said in a low voice, just before bending to leave a full, open-mouthed kiss on her own mouth. Vivian tipped forward onto her toes to meet him, an old, familiar creep of warmth in her belly when he touched her. When she lowered back to her heels, her eyes were soft as they fell on his. “It’s early.”

“I like to be up early,” Vivian answered brightly, fondly dusting flour from his t-shirt. “And I need to look at those letters that came this week.”

“The pipe project?” Gabriel’s face darkened a little. 

A series of similar letters had come during the spring, announcing that exciting things were coming to the area. Jobs development, growing the economy, all the standard words to drum up support for a project that would endanger the security of the pack by cutting directly through their lands. The official letter marking their land and the surrounding hunting territory as “affected areas” had come earlier in the week, followed by letters indicating that a portion of their land could be absorbed through eminent domain. 

Gabriel was a strong alpha and he led with his teeth. He could manage most of the threats that came to them, but this was Vivian’s domain and responsibility. 

Vivian gave Gabriel another quick kiss on the mouth and took a deep drink from her coffee. “I’ll write up a letter today, but I might need to go up to Montpelier to talk to someone up there about what we can do.”

“Be careful,” Gabriel warned, squeezing her waist. “I hope it’s resolved soon.”

Vivian slipped to the back office of the inn, peering inside the dining room for a moment to see the early morning sun peeking through. When she sat down at the desk, she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until color and light swam behind her eyelids.

Human girls were able to date as long as they wanted, love a man and be with him, and put off marriage while they built up the rest of their lives. Vivian wasn’t a human girl, and she lacked that luxury, even as she shamelessly seized it. 

Gabriel was comfortable with her choice to live on her own for a little while, to be an adult on her own before the last part of her life that didn’t already belong to the pack was formally given over to them. All those years before, he’d promised her she could take the time she needed, that he’d chase after her. That hadn’t changed, but the pressure on the two of them--on _Vivian_ \--from the pack grew with every passing moon that Vivian didn’t formally mate with Gabriel. 

_I’m only warning you, baby,_ Esme had warned Vivian darkly. Other bitches in the pack were perfectly capable of claiming her role as his mate without ever challenging her to a fight.

 _I’m trying to save the pack from the biggest threat since that summer in Maryland, and they’re more concerned that I’m not showing Gabriel my belly and getting big as the Moon._ Vivian made a noise of disgust in her throat and pulled a stack of her paperwork toward her, flipping open her laptop.

*

“Did that letter to Montpelier work, baby?”

Esme sashayed into the living room of Vivian’s cabin in her bra and her unzipped jean shorts. She was a little furry, only the veriest beginning of the change, and Vivian looked up at her through lashes, her head bent over papers as she worked 

“I sent that letter three weeks ago,” she said flatly, looking back down at her work. She’d worked tirelessly, sent far more than just one letter, and the only response she’d gotten was that it was unlikely that the state could prevent something so beneficial. The nature of her complaint had been environmental in nature--protecting a natural habitat enjoyed by the citizens of Vermont, such as she and her family and all the pack businesses she represented--but Vivian had not given up yet. 

“Oh,” Esme said dismissively, as if she hadn’t really wanted to know. “Put that work away, baby. The moon is full tonight, the pack is ready to run, and I want to see you run with Gabriel tonight.” 

Vivian’s head hurt, and she could only put off the change to keep working so long. “Fine,” she sighed, laying her pen down on top of the papers and stretching her arms up and over her head. 

Esme touched her daughter’s tawny hair fondly and smiled. “This time, you think, baby? I’m sure Gabriel wants to.”

“I’d have given it more thought than this before springing a Mating on the pack.” Vivian stood up abruptly and pulled off her t-shirt. The sun wasn’t quite set in mid-summer, and summer runs with the moon backlit by the twilight sunset were surreal, and perfectly embodied the displaced sense that had settled into Vivian. 

When mother and daughter stepped outside, Vivian could smell the pack, hear the far-off howls of those who lived farther away. 

“Moonset is around midnight,” Vivian murmured to her mother, thinking ahead to sleep and resuming work in the early morning. 

“I’ll be out all night.” Esme bumped her hip against Vivian’s and grinned. “You should stay out all night, too.” 

Vivian broke step with her mother and walked toward the treeline, stripping off her jeans and bra as she marched forward. “I have too much work to do.”

“Work!” Esme cried, trotting after her, fur spreading up her belly. “Baby, it’s the moon. What could be more important?”

“Freedom to do this,” Vivian snapped, her bra springing back violently onto her ribs. “For the whole pack to run and be free of worry. So we don’t go back to like we were in Maryland.”

Esme shrugged and walked off, ignoring Vivian as she ripped her bra off and changed. It was better than talking to Esme any more. The change rippled through her, and Vivian fell forward with a muffled noise of relief. This was easy for her. In her pelt, she understood what she was and what she was supposed to do.

Vivian’s howl slipped out of her before she realized what was happening, and it was answered from all sides. The pack was nearby, emerging from their houses and cabins and answering the call of the moon. She recognized Renata and her grown pups at her side, more adventurous with their age. 

And there was Gabriel, broad and proud beside her when Vivian ran through the woods. After all her work, all her pains, this was what was right, what was restorative to her. 

Then she realized Gabriel was missing from her side and skidded to a stop in the sweet smelling earth she'd memorized since coming to Vermont. Vivian whipped her head around, sniffing the air frantically. The pack was gathered nearby, and she followed their howls and smells. 

A howl went up, and Vivian followed it. As she neared, she slowed to a trot into a clearing. The pack was gathered around a young pair, circling around one another in what she belatedly realized was the mating dance. 

Vivian froze, searching for Gabriel in the crowd. He was watching the mating ritual with interest, without turning toward her, just as the young pair lunged at one another, to fight for symbolic dominance before one would yield and they would mate in front of the entire pack.

A young female Vivian recognized as a far off cousin, Catherine, pressed her side meaningfully against Gabriel’s as they watched. Vivian considered ripping her throat out for a moment before she thought she saw Gabriel lean ever so slightly into her.

What could she do? Vivian ran for hours, until the moon set and she found herself in front of her little cabin as the moon disappeared in the dark.

She was gone by morning, with the sun bursting from the distant shadows of New York City to her left when she passed the city on her way south.

*

Despite her best intentions, Vivian forgot to call Rudy before she turned off the interstate. By then, she was only minutes from his house and the Maryland suburbs weren’t so familiar to her anymore that she felt confident that she could make it to his house by memory alone. She hadn’t been back to Maryland since she was seventeen, and no one had ever seemed to fault her for declining Rudy’s invitations to come visit when she was in college.

Vivian slammed the door to her truck shut and immediately felt the wet humidity of a Maryland summer mercilessly close in on her. She grabbed her phone and left behind the compact suitcase she’d shoved into the passenger side before leaving Vermont. A quick eye to the front door caught the last movement of the blinds snapping back into place in the living room, and Rudy swung the door open for her just as Vivian reached the top stair on the porch.

Uncle Rudy wore an old terrycloth bathrobe tied limply around his waist, and he seemed older than Vivian remembered him ever looking. The graying hair at his temples streaked through his sideburns and glimmered in his morning stubble, but his eyes were sharp as ever, glimmering with skepticism, and no small amount of pleasure at the sight of her. 

“I meant to call,” Vivian offered, shoving her phone into the back pocket of the jean shorts she’d pulled on before she’d even completely shed her pelt the night before. Rudy gave her a one-armed hug, and waved her into the house.

“Great Moon,” he croaked, “you know what time it is? You know there was a moon last night?”

“Early moonset. I left at one,” Vivian told him, walking directly to the kitchen. Rudy hadn’t made coffee yet, but she would need it. The house was quiet, but she could smell Ulf upstairs, probably fast asleep. 

Rudy took a chair at the table, slumped forward over his elbows as he watched her dump coffee grounds into his ancient drip coffee machine. But Vivian’s energy wasn’t from any predisposition toward rising early. She was anxious, nervous, and she wondered how long it might be before someone came looking for her. 

Before _Gabriel_ came looking for her. 

As if on cue, the landline in the hall rank shrilly. _Why wouldn’t they think to call my phone?_ wondered Vivian, taking it out of her pocket. She’d forgotten that she’d set it on silent, and there were many messages there for her. 

Rudy gave her a dark expression, but he answered the hall telephone. As he listened to the voice on the other end, his eyes landed on Vivian, and she strained to hear who it was. Definitely female. Probably Esme. 

“Yeah,” Rudy said finally, in a tone that made Vivian think he was having trouble breaking into the stream of conversation. “Yeah, she’s right here. She’s fine--yeah. Well, fuck, why don’t you ask her yourself?” 

Instead of handing the phone over to Vivian, though, he dropped it back on the receiver and returned to the kitchen table. Vivian poured a cup of coffee for him immediately and pushed it across the table. Rudy drank from it deeply before he sat back in his chair. Vivian waited.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he said, after a few minutes of silence that was broken only by his wincing slurps from the cup.

“I didn’t really plan to,” Vivian answered, fidgeting with handle of her own cup. But maybe Rudy could understand. More than once, he’d turned down the pack’s offer to be their leader, their alpha. Maybe he knew what it was like to wonder whether you’d made the right decisions, if you were really the right person for the job. Probably he had.

She wasn’t willing to leave it like that, though, with a petulant answer to a generous offer of privacy. 

“I needed to come down for some pack business in August. I’m just down a little earlier than I expected I would be.” It was true enough. With the whispers of construction through the pack’s land, it was prudent to head down south to root out their allies a little sooner. That was, at least, what Vivian told herself when Rudy lifted one silvering eyebrow at her and drank deeply from his mug. 

“Well,” he said, at some great length between her words and his. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you need. Just keep your mother off my back, won’t you? Screeching like a fox on the phone there.” 

“I’ll take care of Esme,” Vivian promised grimly, since she didn’t especially look forward to doing so. 

But Esme was placated easily, especially when Vivian slipped into the sort of jargon-laden chatter about her lobbying tactics to prevent the bill from passing. Her mother didn’t let her slip off the phone without a final remark about Gabriel, _Don’t stay away too long, honey, if you catch my meaning,_ but this was nothing new. 

Vivian slipped the phone back into her pocket and tried not to think too much about her mother’s words. Rudy went back to bed and she was left to wander out to her truck, collect her things, and begin unpacking. 

She hadn’t packed enough, not if she planned to stay down here for a while on pack business, but she didn’t own a lot of clothing that would suit the sort of mundane, _human_ work that she had ahead of her. Vivian decided to go shopping later. Maybe she’d bring Ulf along, after he woke up. 

Vivian was distracting herself, dangling attractive diversions in front of herself to pretend she wasn’t running away. But once her clothes were tucked into the heavy, oak dresser of her old bedroom and her hastily-packed toiletries in the spare bathroom, she was alone again. The house was silent, but she could hear the scream of cicadas from outside. She sat at the edge of her teenage bed and wondered, not for the first time, if she was doing the right thing, or if she’d even recognize the right thing if she were.

*

“I thought you weren’t coming down until September.”

Beside her, Ulf skipped up the stairs to the second floor of the mall. Vivian had the feeling he’d been waiting to ask her about her unexpected arrival, and that this was his compromise between saying nothing and outright asking her what she was doing in Maryland this early. She shrugged, flipping her hair over her shoulder and shooting a _fuck you_ glare to the man who whistled at her as they passed. 

“There’s work to do,” she said simply, and Ulf jammed his hands into his pockets at her inadequate answer until his hair flopped hopelessly over his face. 

“You could have told _me_ , at least,” he said, but he was only pouting now. Vivian relaxed some of the stiffness in her shoulders and tried to stretch her arms over her shoulders. She was tired from the moon, from driving, and even her late morning nap hadn’t done much to take off the biting edge of exhaustion. Ulf did deserve more information than she’d given him. They’d been friends since childhood, since before the Five had even dreamed itself into existence and blasted itself back out during their tumultuous teenage years. Ulf had even gone to college with Vivian, shared an apartment off campus with her, where they sometimes drank too much, ran around half-changed and giggling through wolf-shaped mouths. When Ulf came out, it was first to Vivian. When he decided to move back to Maryland, feeling much like Rudy had, that he’d never have a normal life with the pack if he wasn’t going to mate, he’d told Vivian before Gabriel.

Vivian sighed, “I’m sorry, Ulf.” She meant it, too, but she wasn’t ready to talk about things with anyone, not even him. 

She led him into one of a dozen boutiques that lined the halls, and flipped carelessly through the racks of somber blazers and pencil skirts. 

The girl behind the counter looked at her sourly, her eyes sweeping from Vivian’s ragged tank top and jean shorts to her flip-flopped feet, and went back to reading her magazine. That suited Vivian just fine. She missed Vermont, the simplicity of life in the pack, but knew she’d have to get used to affectation and faking human respectability if she planned to stay down here. 

Vivian dropped the sleeve of a green silk blouse that flattered her dark skin and honey-colored hair and moved along to the next rack. Ulf bobbed next to her, occasionally pointing out clothes he thought might suit her. They were all awful, clashing colors and mixed patterns. At each, Vivian wrinkled her nose and continued her measured walk through the store, but she tried to smile. 

As if he sensed her mood, Ulf seemed determined to make this seem as routine as possible, though she hadn’t seen him in the three or four years since he’d moved back down to Maryland to live with Rudy. She’d insisted that he didn’t need to leave, that the pack wouldn’t mind assuming he found one. But that had been her own selfishness, her own fear that he might leave her behind. After all, there she was, feeling the same isolation from the pack that Ulf had felt because she didn’t fit the mold they’d built for her. She didn’t need a crown. She needed her freedom.

“It seemed so easy before,” she said abruptly, after she’d paid for the absurdly large stack of clothing that left the shop girl wide-eyed with shock when she finished ringing her up. 

Ulf turned his head and frowned, his hands back in his pockets, but his befuddled expression didn’t last. He shrugged and took one of Vivian’s bags from her. “Yeah,” Ulf sighed, weaving past a human family with a gaggle of young children. 

They walked outside toward the parking lot, but Vivian sat down on the benches under the trees with her bags at her feet. Ulf sat down next to her and Vivian rested her head on his shoulder comfortably. Almost instantly, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and rested on her arm. 

“I don’t know what I want, Ulf,” she confessed, her voice quiet enough that she didn’t know if he heard her at first. Then Ulf’s hand squeezed her bicep with genuine warmth. “I don’t want things the way they want.”

“Fuck them,” he answered, head bobbing slowly. If anyone would know that it might turn out all right, it would be Ulf and Uncle Rudy. Maybe that was what brought her to them, after all. 

In either case, Vivian believed him. She elbowed him lightly, forcing herself to sit up straight on her own again. “Maybe I’ll stay here with you and Rudy,” she said boldly. “Fuck them.” 

She didn’t miss the flash of pain in Ulf’s eyes, the wistful longing just before he forced a smile, and followed her back to the truck.

_August  
*  
Grain Moon_

Vivian was surprised how little time she needed to adjust to life in Maryland again. The suburbs were a far cry from her life in Vermont, but she found she _liked_ it. By day, she made contact with a few politicians from Vermont, connected with a non-profit that had taken an interest in preserving the national forest in its entirety, and lobbied for the security and privacy of her pack. It was exhilarating work, and she enjoyed the challenge it gave her, so different than the mundane sort of work she typically did. It was also draining, wrought with anxiety and fear that she might fail and the pack might be exposed.

At night, she returned to the house and stripped along the way to her bedroom, shedding the trappings of the human world and leaving them in a heap on her bed to be ironed later. The suits, blouses, and high-heeled shoes of this world didn’t suit her much, but Vivian thought of them as a costume, a mask to be abandoned at the end of every day. She coaxed Ulf into a long run by the river, stopping to stretch miles and miles from home, where the stars burned brighter. Not so bright as in Vermont, she would note frequently, forgetting Ulf’s silent grief at his self-imposed exile until it was too late. 

She wasn’t homesick. Vivian thought this every morning as she dressed and every night as she fell asleep, before she dreamed of the animal smells of the pack running and rutting together, mingled with the sweet-sharp scent of the pine trees and the earth under her paws. 

No, she thought, as the moon swelled toward its fullness nearly a month after she’d left the pack in Vermont. She wasn’t homesick.

_September  
*  
Harvest Moon_

“You’ve been here a while.”

Rudy sat down next to Vivian on the couch, where she had her legs crossed and her feet curled up under her as she reviewed her papers. She’d come home an hour before, after a long day visiting the offices of lowly congressional staffers and giving the same speech about preserving national park land. It worked in some places. Others, Vivian had resigned herself to having doors shut in her face. Figuratively. Sometimes literally. 

Her business in Washington was exhausting, and it sapped her energy every day she had to go out and do it again. She’d made headway, in all her slammed-doors and frustrated evenings for the past few months, at least securing the pack’s land from being seized for the project. Getting a head start on it seemed to be for the best, after all, even if the pack didn’t appreciate it, and the humans who would benefit from their freedom would never know what it was for. It was brutal, thankless work. 

It was _exhilarating._

“Work to do,” she said simply, though she knew it wouldn’t suffice for what Rudy was getting to. His foot bounced nervously until Vivian set down her pen and crossed her arms. 

“I’ve made so much progress with this, Rudy,” she pointed out. “The pack needs to be safe.”

Rudy rested his hand on his foot and looked thoughtful, leaning back into his couch. For a few moments, it seemed like he wouldn’t speak. Then, he sighed and rubbed his hands over his stubbled cheek. 

“How long have I known you, Vivian?”

Vivian blinked once, then again. “You know you’ve known me my whole life. You were there when I was born in West Virginia.”

“Right,” he said, and fell quiet again. This time, Vivian knew to wait. “And all your life, I’ve seen you struggle with what you want with your life and dig in, because you’re _stubborn_ about things.”

She waited, but when it was obvious he wouldn’t continue, she cleared her throat and frowned. “I’m doing what needs to be done.”

“But only because you want to be that person who does this. Because the alternative is…” Rudy gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, pushing himself up from the couch with a wince of pain. Vivian hadn’t told him much about things in Vermont, the building pressure on her to mate and whelp. She certainly hadn’t told him that a stupid, jealous rage sent her fleeing to Maryland rather than risk having to face the faintest possibility of humiliation. 

“Just don’t stubborn yourself out of what you really want for yourself because the trappings don’t suit you.”

“Are you advising me to go back and play the part they’ve written up for me, like I’m just some pretty trapping for their alpha?” Vivian shoved away her papers, feeling sick with even this mild betrayal. She’d thought Rudy would understand what it was like, to not fit. To want more than that. 

Rudy’s eyebrows leaped on his forehead, and he shook his head violently. “Of course I’m not. I’d be the last person to--No. It’s just that I talked to Ulf, and I talked to Gabriel.” 

She sat up a little straighter. Vivian had sent a few text messages, a few more emails, but she’d been distant with Gabriel. Not that it was completely unusual. Their rapport was usually strong enough that she didn’t need to worry about being away from him. It was always that way: he was doing what he needed, and she was doing what she needed. Sometimes, that was together. Sometimes not. 

“What did Gabriel say?”

Rudy shrugged. “You’re a queen, Vivian, and you are more powerful even than Gabriel, and lucky enough he prefers that from you. Ask him what he said yourself sometime. When you’ve got a break with work.” He pointed to the papers on the coffee table before he headed for the kitchen, probably to grab a shot or three of something strong that might burn off the edge of his aches. “This is more important than getting you mated off and married.”

And she was left alone again to stare at her paperwork, head spinning, until she shoved it aside and headed for the river to run.

*

It took her another two weeks to finish her work in Washington. It was _satisfying_ to see it finished, to have made enough headway that the momentum of what she had started would continue on its own. With or without Vivian there to usher it through.

She packed her truck and started the drive north with only two days to the full moon. This time, when she passed through New York City, she stopped to see the city by day, and as it fell into night, before she moved on. 

When Vivian arrived home in Vermont, she walked circles inside her living room for ten minutes, leaving tracks in the dust that had accumulated while she was gone. Two months she’d been gone, and her little house suddenly seemed inadequate. She stuffed down something to eat, and collapsed in her bed just as dawn peaked on the horizon.

*

_Bang bang bang_

Vivian groaned and blinked open sleep-crusted eyes. She wasn’t aware what the noise was at first, until she rolled over and stared through her living room to the front door. 

The door. 

_Oh._

She crawled out of bed and pushed her pajamas back into place while she padded across the room to the door. Gabriel was on the other side, and Vivian opened the door with a slumped grin.

“You’re home,” Gabriel greeted her, waiting on her step for her to invite him in, which she did by stepping to the side and yawning so widely that her jaw crackled. 

“I drove all night,” she admitted, and looked up at him while further words failed her. She hadn’t expected to see him so soon, and she didn’t know what she would have expected when she did. Maybe that he would feel like her cabin: ill-fitted and wrong. A relic from a different time of her life, when she was a different person. A person she hadn’t been so very long ago. 

Finally, Vivian found her voice again. 

“Gabriel, I’m--” She stammered out, thinking of an apology that she swallowed. She might have told him she would leave. Instead, she said, “I missed you.”

That seemed to be enough. Gabriel stepped forward and rested his hand on her waist and tipped her face up in the same, familiar motion she’d memorized years before. Vivian leaned into it, tipping forward onto her toes and pressing an open-mouthed kiss onto his mouth and sighing when Gabriel eased into it. 

_Yes,_ she thought instantly, when her spine melted and her hands held Gabriel up from sighing into her with all his weight. _Yes, this is right. This has always been right, even if--_

Vivian broke from him and took Gabriel’s hand in hers. “The moon is tomorrow night.”

He steered her toward her bedroom, where she knew he would force her to lay down and go back to sleeping off her night. But then he sat down next to her on the bed and gently touched her cheek with his calloused fingertips. 

“Let me win,” she breathed into Gabriel’s neck as she drifted toward sleep once again. His breath was steady on her neck, and his touch unfalteringly soft, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. “When we do the mating dance,” she clarified after a long, sleepy pause.

She’d had time to think about it, what it was she wanted. Gabriel, to be the leader the pack needed from their alpha bitch, her work, and even to have children with him, to grow up in the pack as she had. She wanted it all, without compromising herself to have it. Somewhere on the drive through Connecticut, with the waxing moon heavy in the sky above, it had occurred to her that it was possible. 

Gabriel’s fingers hesitated once again, but he bent forward and kissed her mouth delicately, silently mouthing the words, _yes, my queen_ against them while his fingers worked through her hair in quiet adoration. The last thing Vivian heard before she fell back to deep sleep, was his quiet affirmation, spoken louder and louder, until she felt the words echoing in her chest, in her heart, in her blood, like the song of the Moon itself.


End file.
